Palestine: Statement of Policy by His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom. Presented by the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Parliament by Command of His Majesty, October 1930 [The “Passfield White Paper”]

(ZIONISM)

HM Stationary Office

London

1930

Seal of the British Empire on title

Issued by the Colonial Secretary, Lord Passfield (Sidney Webb), in the wake of the riots of 1929 and the findings of the Shaw Commission. A central theme of this White Paper, was the argument that under the terms of the Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, "a double undertaking is involved, to the Jewish people on the one hand and to the non-Jewish population on the other." It rejected the view that the passages regarding the Jewish National Home were the principal feature of the Mandate and recommended the restriction of Jewish migration to Palestine and restrictions on the purchase of land by Jews. TheWhite Paper further whittled down the intent of the Balfour Declaration and foreshadowed fresh restrictions on Jewish immigration and settlement in Palestine. It was received unfavorably by public opinion in Great Britain and, understandably met with protest from supporters of a Jewish National Homeland who condemned it soundly. Dr. Chaim Weizmann resigned his presidency of the Jewish Agency in protest, declaring that the White Paper went far toward "denying the rights and sterilizing the hopes of the Jewish people in regard to the National Home." See EJ, IX, cols. 343-4